Banana-Brown Sugar Ice Cream

My recent banana windfall gave me the chance to play around a bit with various banana ice cream combinations. Although I loved the taste of this one, frankly, I wasn’t sure I should post the recipe.

Since bananas are such a natural partner for coconut, I reasoned, “Why use milk or cream when there’s coconut milk? So I reached for a can of it. Continuing with that train I thought, I had a bag of jaggery, raw cane sugar that’s used in Indian cuisine.

I’d bought the husky, ultra-dark sugar up near the gare du Nord, in the Indian and Sri Lankan neighborhood, for no other reason than I was attracted to its rich color and the aggressive scent that wafted through the bag when I pressed it against my nose. When I moved to Paris, I remember people telling me to avoid that neighborhood, that it wasn’t safe. But it’s become one of my favorite quartiers, mostly because of the lively ethnic communities that have settled there. (As well as being the home to the Paris chapter of the Hell’s Angels.)

Aside from the shops with all sorts of unusual pungent spices, dusky flours, sugars, leafy herbs, and odd-shaped fruits, which I love poking through, the Barbès market on Saturday morning is pretty wild and it like stepping into another country: it can be rather riotous and certainly isn’t for the timid, and if you’re not watching your back (and front…and sides) you’ll likely come home with a few bruises. But your shopping basket will be overloaded with lots of oddities, as mine invariably is, which makes it worth braving the masses.

I like playing around with different sugars, since their flavors can vary so much. And by simply swapping out another sugar in a recipe, you can change the flavor (and ethnicity, in some cases, like here) of a recipe. Many natural or unrefined sugars add a wonderfully harmonious flavor when paired with ingredients from similar regions and cuisines.

Most smart folks agree that anything tastes better caramelized, so I sliced the bananas (which, unlike me, are improved by bruises) and cooked them in a bubbling mixture of jaggery and coconut milk. But after cooking the mixture, then letting it chill overnight, the next day when I went to churn the mixture, I opened the lid of the contain and, well…let’s just say it was not a pleasant sight. It didn’t really bother me, but I figure readers might flip at something that looked similar to a pile of mud.

Like my voyages to unusual markets, being the adventurous type, I took a spoonful and it tasted great. So I whisked it well to thin it out and poured it into my machine. And waited. After about thirty minutes, I lifted the lid off the canister in the machine and took a taste. It was pretty wonderful stuff.

Still wary of reactions to the color out htere, I decided to ask my Twitter followers what they thought (since I thought it resembled frozen pâté), but everyone responded favorably. Of course, I did it during the daytime, which is when the folks in India were still awake.

Jaggery can be pretty strong stuff. So if you’re not prepared for the full-flavor of it, look for one that’s light in color. You can also use palm sugar, unrefined cane sugar, or even regular light or dark brown sugar, depending on your preferences. Another voice on Twitter chimed in, and mentioned cardamom, which would be a lovely addition as well.

If you use coconut milk, the ice cream is vegan, although I made a version with fromage blanc (similar to sour cream) and good for those of you who don’t have access to coconut milk, although it’s pretty easily found in most well-stocked supermarkets, nowadays. And you don’t need to brave any crowds to get it.

Banana-Brown Sugar Ice Cream

Print Recipe

Makes about3 cups (.75L)

If using sour cream or fromage blanc, when cooking the bananas, the mixture might curdle a bit. That’s fine; just proceed with the recipe and it’ll smooth out when blended. Bananas should be soft and quite ripe; lots of black speckles on the outside is the best indication of ripeness.Because this isn’t a custard-based ice cream, it’s easier to make, but freezes harder when stored for a while in the freezer. So be sure to take it out at least five minutes before serving, or longer, so it comes to the right scooping temperature.

1. In a wide skillet or saucepan, heat the brown sugar with one-quarter of the coconut milk or sour cream, stirring, until smooth and bubbly.

2. Add the bananas and salt, and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the bananas are soft and completely cooked through. It should take about five minutes.

3. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining coconut milk or sour cream, rum and vanilla. Taste, and add a few drops of fresh lemon juice if it tastes too sweet.

4. Puree in a blender or food processor until completely smooth.

5. Chill thoroughly, then freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. (If it’s too thick when you take it out of the refrigerator, whisk it briskly, which should thin it out so you can pour it into your machine.)

77 comments

I’d love to top that banana chocolate cake from last week with some of this ice cream.

The Paris Food Blague

March 16, 2010 7:05am

glad you’re putting those bananas to good use! and the Barbès market is fantastic…i’m was shocked by the Parisian attitude toward the 18e. it’s also one of my favorite neighborhoods and–while certainly not Neuilly–i’ve never felt threatened there (can’t say the same for many new york neighborhoods….).

Is the jaggery sugar the same thing than “rapadura sugar”, available in organic stores ? it seems to be the same thing but I’m not sure, rapadura is raw cristallized cane juice and has a strong flavor. I love the combination banana/rapadura/coco, no matter the color :D. What about adding some good old Rhum too ?

About la gare du nord, i’ve happened to know this part of paris with more depth when I went to see a friend who lives there a few weeks ago. i’ve been thrilled with the colors, the sounds, the unique products, the little Tamil tea shops :D. I totally agree with you, it’s worth to be discovered !

Jennifer

March 16, 2010 8:42am

Looks great! A technical question; you say that it’s a custard-based ice cream but I see no eggs in the ingredients. Does the sliminess of the bananas replace the function of the eggs?

I forgot this : I have this trick to have perfect tiger-ed bananas or simply to make them darker, to whoever likes dark bananas and has no patience : put them in the microwave, with the skin and all, by 10 seconds sections on high heat. The more they heat this way, the more they are tiger-ed, and they end completely black and with this delicious alcoholic taste overripe bananas have ♥, after 1 or two minutes combined. The same effect can be achieved with even better results by baking them in a hot oven till the color seems perfect.

Jennifer: I mentioned that it isn’t a custard-based ice cream in the headnote, hence the lack of eggs.

krysalia: I’m not that sure about what jaggery is in relation to other sugars. It does taste similar to palm sugars that I’ve had in Thailand, but am not sure about Rapadura.

Elizabeth: Yes, for vegans this works well. Because many vegan ice creams use soy or rice milk, they can come out icy. The coconut milk gives this a bit of creaminess, although it does freeze rather firm, too. You can also follow some of the tips I give in the link afterward about keeping homemade ice cream softer, including adding a bit more rum. (Which I think is vegan, too!)

Margaret

March 16, 2010 8:58am

Boohoo that you’re not coming to Central Market this year to promote your book — but yes, you must come over and eat mexican food and have margaritas with everyone!

pffffff, I was wondering why you were saying to add “a bit more rum” in the previous comment : I did not see the rum inside the ingedients list :/, suis-je bête ! Désolée !

I’ll search for the jaggery, I think because both (with the Rapadura) are 100% cane sugar and seem pretty raw, they are probably close, but I wonder if jaggery has gone through some process of drying, cooking and all, that would change its taste.

Its great that you are giving people more ideas to use up bananas. I keep reading that they are the most commonly wasted food.http://www.freshplaza.com/news_detail.asp?id=59855 It’s a shame because there are so many ways to use them in cooking and in smoothies, milkshakes etc.

Man – two days late! I had some lovely dark brown bananas hanging in the freezer and just used them for some chocolate banana splet muffins. they are great for breakfast, but i’m wondering if now i’d rather have ice cream? and to make matters worse, i actually put the ice cream canister in the freezer on sunday to whip up some sorbet! dang!

I’m intrigued because I have some bananas left over from my recent banana bread craze, but my question is, could I make this without an ice cream maker since it does freeze harder? Or would it be ok if I checked on it more frequently??

Excellent idea! Recipe looks simple and simple is what I need right now! Say, David, do you conduct any other tours in Italy aside from the gelato walk in Rome? My husband and I are planning to visit Venice and Tuscany region so we’re in the process of putting together our vacation itinerary. Any helpful tips?

I have a question david. Some ice creams call for egg yolks and some don’t, how come? I recently made and ice cream with yolks and didnt like it because it tasted to much like custard. Can I just omit the eggs?

Also, what is they key to getting a cohesive creamy ice cream, instead of one the breaks into little chucks when you try to scoop it and is kind of icey?

This brings to mind a dessert based ice cream that’s been playing in my head for a couple of years based on Bananas Foster. I had purchased from a closeout sale, a discontinued pint of it from the Hagen Daaz Dessert ice cream line. It was so delicious that I couldn’t imagine that it didn’t make their standard line up. I recall that they marbled the caramelized banana chunks with toasted pecans and brown sugar-rum mixture through the vanilla ice cream base. Honestly, it was one of the best things I’d ever tasted. Your recipe seems based more on the German’s Chocolate cake Frosting, which I don’t normallly care for because it’s so sweet but mostly because of the combo of pecans and coconut. Without the pecans, I am excited to try it. Are the bananas in this mixture sturdy enough once caramelized to marble through the coconut base, or would it all just sort of moosh into the base too easily?

Sunshine

March 16, 2010 11:08am

I’ve been searching for a dairy free (but not nec vegan) ice cream that uses coconut milk and this looks to be a good one!

It reminds me of a Filipino dessert called banana con hielo…. Just caramelized bananas, milk and then shaved ice….. However, we use evaporated milk and another kind of banana similar to a plantain (its local name is “saba”)…. Perfect for hot sunny days though…..

Mrs Redboots

March 16, 2010 11:32am

My husband keeps asking whether I plan to use up all those bananas – I was going to make your lovely cake, but the ice-cream sounds even more delicious and I haven’t enough bananas for both…. hmmmm, decisions, decisions….. maybe I’ll just go out and buy more bananas!

Wilhelmina

March 16, 2010 12:05pm

Thank you, thank you again David!

This makes a delicious ice-cream without the rum too, suitable for toddlers. I did add a bit of cardamom to make up for it, and found it didn’t freeze too hard. Delicious!

I praised your chocolate sorbet before and can’t do it enough and now here’s this ice-cream too. My two year old is anaphylactic allergic to dairy as well as eggs and she loves bananas. Well, lately the banana has to be just ripe enough but not a bit too ripe so the feel of it in the little hands is accepted. Hence a lot of brown bananas and now delicious ice cream.

We had a play date and four toddlers to try this out on today and it went down well with mums too. First warmer day of spring here and with this recipe roll on summer!

Ever since I’ve gotten an ice cream maker, I’ve been getting a lot more use out of it than I thought I would- part of this is due to the fact that I figured out I could just use coconut milk (or coconut cream) in sorbets for a creamy texture without the trouble of making a custard. As a matter of fact I just posted a recipe for a Candied Kumquat & Coconut sorbet a few days ago. I like the sour cream suggestion too, though; I can picture that pairing nicely with banana.

noëlle: Sour cream works really nicely because some have gums and/or stablizers (natural ones, I hope!) that help the ice cream stay smooth and creamy without making a custard. Adding a touch of liquor helps, too. I generally prefer fruit ice creams that aren’t custard-based, as it allows the fruit to shine through. Although they can freeze rather firmly, I think it’s a fine trade-off.

alex: I talk about this in my ice cream book in greater detail, but in general egg yolks have a lot of emusifying properties that make smoother, creamier ice cream, which some people prefer.

Jenny: You might want to contact Judy at Divina Cucina, who does tours in Florence since she lives there full-time. She is great!

elra: Yes, some people use evaporated milk (or sweetened condensed milk) for ice cream. I haven’t used it all that much, since I prefer the taste of fresh milk and cream, but I love all the various styles of ice cream from various cultures, and that sounds great, too.

Bonnie: At the end of the post, I linked to a post I did about making ice cream without a machine that does into depth on how to do that. Happy stirring : )

Brian: Well, I think I got them all. But the market is Thursday, so perhaps there’ll be more!

Are you kidding, David? This could be your best ice cream yet. I’m loving all the coconut milk ice cream (yes it’s delicious, and yes it saves time), and my knees are getting weak thinking about all the caramel goodness the jaggery brings to the table.

Great minds must think alike! I was just looking at your roasted banana ice cream recipe in The Perfect Scoop, and stuck a note on it that says “coconut milk!” These recent banana-related posts inspired me to pick up some bananas at the store today – I wonder what will become of them…

Re the 18th, I dig the ethnic neighborhoods. I live à deux pas de Belleville, which I know isn’t considered one of Paris’ nicest neighborhoods, either. The difference between that and Barbès, in my worldview, is this: My Métro stop has never been shut down because of rowdy soccer fans and fires in the bike lanes.

This looks fantastic. I’ve never been put off of an ice cream based off its color. People like cookies and cream and it looks like its got potting soil swirled in it. The flavors sound fantastic though. Does the coconut flavor come through much? I’d think with the strong flavors of the banana and the brown sugar in there the coconut would get a little lost.

You’ve inadvertently, or maybe intentionally, stumbled on the ice-cream version of a dessert that’s often made in Kerala, a lush, beautiful region on the south-west corner of peninsular India. It’s called Pazha Pradhaman (try getting your tongue around the words!) It’s a pudding made with a large plaintain-like variety of banana. The bananas are mashed and caramelized with jaggery (which is an unrefined cane sugar) and then cooked with freshly-pressed coconut milk. Flavored with cardamom, of course, and garnished with golden fried bits of coconut and cashew.

Hi Zang: I use as my metric measurement 1 cup of liquid=250 ml. For 1 cup of sour cream, it’s 240 gr. Thanks for spotting that. And as for the bananas, 1 1/4# (20 oz) is about 600 grams, or 556 grams is you want to be precise. (Am not sure where the 1.5 pounds you’re speaking of appears, though.)

Often ingredient lists are also considered a ‘shopping list’ and I think it’s easier for readers to pick up 600 gr than 560 gr of bananas. When in doubt, you can use the number of fruits called for in a recipe. I am going to stop calling for fruit by weight in the future on the site because of variations. -dl

Oh, this is hilarious! That’s the scary/dangerous area of town? I arrived in Paris, by myself, for my first visit ever, on Friday night, and spent large parts of Saturday, Sunday and Monday in that area, at the Lariboiserie hospital (which I know I’ve spelt wrong…) I actually went through that market, too, but was so stressed about needing the hospital that I didn’t enjoy it.

On the plus side, I just finished eating an entire box of the crepes dentelles you recommended a while back :D

davidsl

March 16, 2010 4:22pm

wow. i didn’t know you could make ice cream without dairy….never thought of coconut milk. brilliant! for those of us who are dairy impaired, this is a revelation. is it a straight substitution? or are their rule of thumb for replacing the cream/milk with coconut milk?

mmm, ice cream with coconut milk sounds delicious as well as nutritious.

Nisrine

oakjoan

March 16, 2010 9:10pm

Your foray into the Indian/Sri Lankan neighborhood reminded me of my husband’s experience in Marseilles. This was about 15 years ago and it’s probably all Colonel Sanders and Starbucks now. I just noticed that the spelling checker recognized Starbucks so I typed Peet’s and got a red underline. To me, this is a very good thing.

In any case, he was walking, turned a corner and found himself in a combo of Algiers and Kenya. He was amazed and thrilled and wandered around for an hour or so. I don’t think he ever felt threatened, though.

This ice cream sounds great and I have some bananas that are just about at the right stage. I’m thinking of a combo of coconut milk and low fat Pavel’s yogurt….hmmm.

My oh my….I could just swim in that brown sugar yumminess!! if you enjoy chocolate, Id love for you to see the goodies I have made, and I have a give away too…. :)

Natalie Yasmin

March 16, 2010 9:41pm

David, I’d like to give this recipe a try, but I don’t have an ice cream machine. I came across your suggestions to making homemade ice cream softer. My question has to do with the first point on the list: Adding alcohol.

With the flavor of this ice cream in mind, would it be preferable to add vodka or (is it the flavor compatible with) Grand Marnier? OR, since there is already some in the recipe, would it make sense to simply add a tablespoon or two more?

It seems that the uglier the banana, the tastier. Do you know if jaggery is anything like piloncillo? It looks a little damper in the photo, but I was hoping the flavors were similar since I already have a ton of piloncillo.

I recently made the Roasted Banana Ice Cream from your book and loved it but am very much liking the use of coconut milk with the touch of dark of dark rum. This is next in line for my ice cream maker!

I’ve never tried jaggery but will very soon, not only because I can easily walk to that part of the 10th but also because I like saying “jaggery”.

Leslie

March 17, 2010 12:15am

Hi David. That looks great. I’ve recently started making ice cream (got a Cuisinart ICE-50 – very noisy!) and I know I gotta try several of your recipes. Could you say something about the milk itself? I can get the stuff straight from the coconut, or cans of something called coconut cream. Will either/both of these (or a mixture) do the job ? Thanks.

Leslie: I think all machines are noisy. But I use an ICE-50, too, and I just keep it in the other room when it’s churning. Coconut milk is a mixture of the meat and liquid, blended, and usually comes in cans or in aseptic (cardboard) boxes. The liquid inside the coconut is water and has little flavor.

Confusingly, Cream of Coconut (such as Coco Lopez) is usually heavily-sweetened and not the same thing. Whereas there’s something called coconut cream, which is thick but not sweetened. For this recipe, I call for coconut milk, which is usually available in well-stocked supermarkets and ethnic stores.

Zang & Matevz: Yes, it’s 2 cups or 500 ml. Thanks for spotting that. And as for the bananas, 1 1/4# (20 oz) is about 600 grams, or 556 grams to be exact.

When in doubt, you can use the number of fruits called for in a recipe. I am going to stop calling for fruit by weight in the future on the site because of variations.

Christine: There seems to be a zillion kinds of natural sugars and you could use any, including piloncillo, in this recipe. I love that sugar, too.

Natalie: You could certainly add more liquor, up to the amount I recommend in that post, but whenever I add alcohol to a recipe, invariably a number of people comment if they can leave it out for a variety of reasons. So to keep the recipes as accessible to the widest group, I offer the basic and link to that post, so folks can add more should they choose.

In this case, I’d just add more rum rather than vodka because of the flavor. An orange-flavored liquor would work well, too, but I find the combination of rum and bananas pretty spot-on! : )

Jaggery looks similar to Indonesian’s gula Jawa or Malaysian’s gula Malaka. I am curious if they taste the same. Off to the Indian market soon. Thanks for the recipe, David.

suedoise

March 17, 2010 6:40am

In the Indian food shops around the gare du Nord you can find a lemon paste mixed with ginger in small jars called “achards de citron” from Madagascar and the Réunion, it is often used with cocoa milk in main dishes. It is very strong very pure. In supermarkets elsewhere the paste is sold in jars of 210 grammes called “citron confit au gingembre” made in France. It keeps for 6 months in refrigerator after opening. I added a generous tablespoon of the paste to your delicious ice cream recipe and next time will take more. Hot lemon rocks!

I was already there when you started talking about bananas and coconut, but then you mentioned jaggery, and I was SOLD. I love jaggery, or panela, or piloncillo – they’re so much more robust in flavor than simple brown sugar. And then, to caramelize it? Oh my, I want some right now. I’m drooling.

Oh! It makes me absolutely ecstatic to see you using coconut milk for your ice cream! I made your vanilla bean ice cream but since I cannot tolerate cow’s milk (boo!) I took a leap of faith and substituted coconut milk and goat’s milk. Honestly, I was concerned about the goat milk (there is a reason why my daughter calls it cheese milk) but it really turned out and was delicious!

This looks so mouth-watering. It’s incredible how dark the sugar and coconut milk mixture is in that first photo – wow! Before reading, I thought it was bananas in caramel. I can’t imagine American brown sugar creating a liquid that dark. Maybe a little added molasses would do the trick? Or caramelizing the sugar first? I’ll have to experiment. Damn, I really need an ice cream maker…

Dina

March 17, 2010 10:24pm

I’ve been going to fruit farms lately and picking my own fruit. I end up with so much that I wrack my brain to think of great dishes to make to use them up before they go bad. This is a ice cream flavor to make if I ever have an excess of bananas!

I don’t know what happened either. After noticing the sour cream/coconut milk error, I think I got a little overzealous in checking the other ingredients for mistakes and must’ve entered 1.5 lbs for the bananas instead of 1.25 in my calculator.

As for going by fruit vs. weight; I’d say no. Sure, it makes stuff easier for john/jane doe out there, but john/jane doe also seem to have issues with recipes in general. A peach from Georgia is gonna be bigger than a peach from Ontario. Here in Canada, we seem to get bananas bigger than they get in the Dominican Republic (I don’t get this, personally). This recipe would probably do fine, but a banana bread could end in dry disaster.

As a line cook myself, I really appreciate weights and precision in recipes (otherwise I probably wouldn’t have been so anal as to correct someone with far more experience than I). It’s not so important in non-pastry, but man did it help me out when I first started cooking. I think an accurate scale is one of the most important pieces of equipment a home cook can buy. All grocery stores have accurate, audited scales for the customer’s use. If people used scales more often, it’d remove one less “failure vector” for the recipes they use, and allow them to focus more on technique. We cooks use scales, and if people want to cook like we do, I feel they should learn the same basics. As one of my chefs once told me “imprecision is a learned skill”

David, I totally agree with Zang! Please DO NOT use number of fruits as opposed to weighing them, as he said, it can lead to a disaster in the recipe. I think most of your readers are accomplished cooks who would prefer the recipe written the correct way. If a home cook does not have a scale, items can be weighed at the market, it’s that simple. I wouldn’t change my way of writing a recipe because a few readers don’t have scales.

Bonnie

March 20, 2010 11:34pm

David, do you think one could use palm sugar instead of the brown sugar or jaggery? I came a cross a good deal on a few pounds of it so I have some to spare.

I have not heard of jaggery, but may possibly find it with all the International markets we have in Atlanta. I would love to try making this with demerara sugar instead, since I have a huge container begging to be used. This looks so good…I am thinking bananas foster!

i really love and appreciate your sense of experimentation and use of ethnically diverse ingredients– heehee it’s good to know that even the pros can churn out something that resembles paté! But certainly not when it was scooped into a lovely ball and covered in shiny sauce!

OMG, this is going on the List of Ice Cream Recipes From David Lebovitz That I Must Cook immediately. The next time my husband buys too many bananas, instead of making banana bread, I will commandeer them immediately for this. In fact I think my cooking blog may very well end up a blog about cooking my way through The Perfect Scoop and any other ice cream recipes that keep popping up on this site. (Like the salted butter caramel ice cream I made a few weeks ago… amazing). You’re in my foodblog-a-round this week. And you probably will be every week. — @consumableJoy

David, great post! I am sure this is going to taste Yum! The basic combination of jaggery, coconut and cardamom – you just cannot go wrong. In Sri Lanka, I believe there is a dessert called “Vathalappam” – made just like creme caramel – instead of using sugar, they substitute with Jaggery and instead of milk – coconut milk – to which they add cardamom instead of vanilla essence – Cheers! Love your blog!

YYYUUUMMMMMM!!!!!!! Caramelized anything is grand by me!!I must try this soon, thanks!!

Beth

March 25, 2010 6:34pm

Coincidentally I just made the roasted banana ice cream recipe from the Perfect Scoop the other day, and it was awesome. So I think I’ll be trying this tomorrow!

Martina

May 15, 2010 11:07am

Hi David, Thank you AGAIN for The Perfect Scoop. Everything I have made from it is SOOOOO good. When I made the Roasted Banana ice cream I got a pretty off-putting color, too, which I attributed (perhaps erroneoulsy) to roasting the bananas one day and leaving them in a fridge till I made the ice cream the next day. But the flavor more than made up for the icky color, especially when I added stracciatelli (sp?) to the mix. I’m eager to try using coconut milk, and I’ll try making the whole thing in one day to try to keep the color more appealing. Cheers Martina

stephanie

May 22, 2010 10:07pm

I made this with sour cream and it was sooooooooo delicious! And so easy to make too! It’s great with cookies and chocolate and I think it would be great in an ice cream cake – maybe I will try that!

Rebecca

January 3, 2011 3:23am

I made this with sour cream and dark brown sugar (jaggery is not readily available where I live) and it turned out terribly, I was so disappointed. However, it was my very first try at ice cream, so maybe I did something wrong. That seems likely since everyone else is raving about it… I did accidentally put in all the sour cream at the beginning–perhaps that’s what changed the flavor since the sugar and bananas didn’t really caramelize? Oh, well. Thanks for your inspiring recipes! I’m excited to try the salted caramel ice cream next!

Yes, you will not get the right flavor unless the instructions are followed. As you mentioned, you added the sour cream all at once, hence the difference. If you try it again, follow the recipe and you’ll likely be satisfied with the results, as others were.